A Season's Greetings Nighthawk

The Gateway to the Holidays

Vol. 129, December 3rd, 2024 Published a day early online

Gateway to the Holidays

It’s a frosty December morning here on the mountain, and boy does it feel festive. Thanksgiving is the gateway to the holidays. It’s my birthday in a few days, too. I joke about the early Christmas decorations being for me, as if I’m the opening band for the big day. “Stick around, folks, you’ll love the headliner. And he loves you!”

The brothers came to visit for Thanksgiving, and we put up lights on my new house.

Sawdust is flying in the woodshop. I’m building presents. The air smells like cedar, and oak, with it’s scent of autumn forest. There’s Burl Ives and Chuck Berry and Dean Martin on the shop speaker, singing the songs of the season. They say it all the time, but it’s hard to believe Christmastime is here again.

The season means different things to different people, and seems to have a new color or flavor every year–a classic recipe passed down. We wonder how the cookies will turn out this time. It can be happy, sad, joyous, stressful, lonely, empty, profound, and redemptive, often all at once.

We’ll be walking through it together here at The Nighthawk this season. Know that you’ve got a pen-pal here.

If you’d like a Christmas card, drop a line: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588.

Light ‘Em Up

The Christmas lights shine into the night on my porch, with a tree in the window.

Song of the Week

“A Holly Jolly Christmas” (Burl Ives)

The 1965 album cut (not the Rudolph soundtrack) was always the first song mom played to welcome the season.

The Man Is Back In Town

The Elvis Comeback Special aired today, December 3rd, 1968.

Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week

Lay out (to be truant). “You kids better quit laying out or your grades will suffer.”

Quote of the Week

“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”–Shelley

Write to Us!

The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com

Letters from Josh

(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #214)

Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc: The Winter Watch

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show! Have you noticed? Winter is springing up like, well...Spring. We’re still two and a half weeks out from the official start, but it’s sneaking up on me in bits and pieces.

It started well before Thanksgiving. The first sign glowed in the night along a lonely stretch of Route 60. Way east of Mt. Rush there were Christmas lights, shining out for the logging trucks and the occasional car rolling through the woods.

More houses flicker to life every night. Jammed in city traffic for a work trip up north, I growled at the headlights and brake lights and... “Hey, that car has Christmas lights all over it.” If a cop gives him a ticket, bet he sings “The Grinch.”

Frost stuck to the ground yesterday morning, blue in the shadows, icing the fields. The pines and late-turning oaks seemed like a grandmother’s quilting pattern, nature settling down for her long winter’s nap.

I drove along, taking it all in, the hint of a wood stove on the breeze.

At night, the winter stars are climbing high into the sky, Orion “throwing a leg over the fence of mountains”, as Robert Frost would say. Jupiter dazzles like an ornament in the east, and Mars slinks in late, red. Maybe he’s mad the other stars started the party without him.

I’ve been walking through the hay field, watching the constellations, bumping the deer. They run away with a start, and their snort feels personal. Maybe they’re calling me a nerd in animal talk.

The daylight is changing, too. The blue and gray is back.

I went way up in the mountains by Coleman Falls with the folks last weekend. The dirt road wound along the creek, through a ravine, and then opened into a sudden clearing. A field of Christmas trees waited.

A beautiful Canaan Fir stands in my living room, the first tree in the new house. I don’t have any ornaments as snazzy as Jupiter and Mars to put on the branches, but I’ve got some silly ones. The inside jokes are decades old, but still make me shake my head and laugh.

It’s my birthday in a few days. It’s a festive time of year to be born, like being the opening band for Christmas. Yes sir, I’m keeping the winter watch, and digging the signs of the season. Keep an eye out. Maybe we’ll have snow.

Catch you on the flip side,

Josh

Send hot coffee and postcards to P.O. Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or on X @RealJoshUrban